


The Nature of the Beast

by wingthing



Series: The EQ Alternaverse [39]
Category: Elfquest
Genre: EQ Alternaverse, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-09
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-19 20:59:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4760807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wingthing/pseuds/wingthing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Melati continues her work to restore her soulbrother... and to discover the true nature of her creation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

He is not Yosha. I must keep telling myself that. 

But he could be. In time. With luck. 

He is making remarkable progress. When he first awoke he could barely control his limbs, yet within hours he was walking unaided. He can mimic simple words – more, he seems to understand what they mean. When I point to myself he beams and squacks “Mel” like an excited child, and a grin lights up his ravaged face. 

He looks so much like Cricket when he smiles. Why did I never really notice that before? 

He’s not Yosha. Not yet. 

But he can be taught. He can become more than a mute beast. In time… perhaps I can reach some small part of Yosha. Even if only an echo or two. An echo is better than nothing. It means the sound still exists. 

And until I can restore him further – I will document all I can. There are lessons to be learned everywhere, even in teaching a halfwit to put one foot in front of the other. 

* * * 

He clung to me, whimpering, when it was time for me to leave him. I couldn’t make him understand that I would return. He would have followed me out onto the sand if I hadn’t put him to sleep. A jackwolf pup whining for its mother. 

It… disturbed me. I cannot say why. 

**Bloomtide – second day since revival**

I am keeping this record on flowstone, at the base of my cave. Words etched into the rock will remain forever, even as I coax fresh flowstone to cover the glyphs. Like pages in a pirate’s book, the writing will endure. I can extend my senses into the rock to re-read each entry when I need to refresh my memory. My own stone Scroll of Colors. Not as elegant as the Egg, perhaps, but far more precise. 

I returned to Beast as soon as I could. He was still fast asleep on the stone pallet where I’d left him. There are advantages – however slightly – to his crippled mind. It seems I can still it at a touch, and it will stay dormant until I reawaken it. Leetah taught me a calming sending that can help ease an elf to sleep, but with Beast it is more a matter of clapping a lid on a jar. 

I feared he would not recognize me. But he sprang up and clung to him as if he hadn’t seen me in years. He babbled in his own broken language: the grunting, hollow outline of words. I tried to teach him to say “Good morning” – why not begin with common courtesies, I reasoned. The best he was able to approximate was a cawing that sounded like “gaw-maw-ni.” Clearly we will need to restrict ourselves to simpler words. 

But he does love the sound of his voice. It was oddly touching, watching him start in amazement that he can make sounds, then laugh in triumph and applaud himself. He takes a baffling amusement in his capacity to make noise: slapping his hands against the many surfaces in my cave, stamping out rhythms with his feet, humming and whistling and generally making quite the fool of himself. So why does it make me smile? 

Sentiment won’t be of any use. Precision is what is called for – a precise, calculated regimen. Beast needs a strict routine. 

I have it all devised. I will leave Oasis in the early morning, after sharing a meal with my lord and my lady. They will not question me if I say I wish to go exploring in the Thorn Fields. I am a grown maiden now. 

I reckon I can spend the better part of the morning with Beast. Then I will have to leave him to attend my own lessons. Grandmother Leetah insists on watching me prove myself. One would think the old mare could sense I’ve already surpassed her by leaps and bounds. But I must humor her, for now. She could cause a lot of trouble for me if she starts braying to the wrong elves. 

It’s just as well. Beast tires easily. A long daysleep will benefit him. And I can be back at the cave after sundown. 

Lady Chani used to always check on me to say goodnight, but after finding my bed empty enough times, she has let me be. I pride myself on having so earned their trust. Really, I could disappear for days and they wouldn’t fret about me. Yosha could never have managed that. One missed meal and Maleen would have screamed down the walls of Oasis. One empty bed and she probably would have sent all across the Vastdeep to Cricket, and demanded he come to the rescue in the Palace itself. 

Really, I’m far more fortunate in my guardians. 

**Bloomtide – third day since revival**

Beast’s spoken vocabulary has passed fifty words. Would that he could learn how to chew with his mouth closed. 

**Bloomtide – fifth day since revival**

I got Beast to bathe for the first time today. It was quite overdue; like any infant, he has a talent for attracting filth. 

He was terrified for immerse himself in the spring, but after I took off my clothes and got in the water first, I could see a glimmer of curiosity in his eye. He started pawing at the water’s surface, first in mistrust, then in excitement. He submerged his hand, then his arm, then he finally let me help him into the pool. Within a few moments he was splashing and laughing in his strange, breathless way. Before I knew it, I was laughing too. 

I haven’t really laughed like that since before he died. 

Afterwards I tried an experiment. Since he loves making noise so much, I brought my harp to the cave, to show him what proper music an elf can make. He was immediately transfixed by the sounds the strings made. I showed him how to pluck them to make notes, and that prompted another fit of delighted squeals. Then I started to play for him, and he listened with rapt attention. 

I played him the simpler pieces every child learns: “Jackwolf’s Howl” “Highsun Lament” “Skipping Stones.” They I tried more elaborate melodies. He rocked in time with the measure, and his eyes followed my fingers across the strings. 

When I was halfway through “If I Could Fly” I noticed something strange. He was humming along with the notes. The song is very complex; I marveled that he could keep up with me. When I reached the refrain, he almost seemed capable of predicting the shift of notes, the cascading scales. My hands stilled on the strings, and he finished the tune himself, humming it exactly. 

That was Yosha’s favorite song. 

I set down the harp; I knelt down on the cave floor in front of him. “Yosha?” I asked again. “Yosha, is it you? Are you in there somewhere?” I took his face in my hands. “Please… please give me a sign you understand.” 

But Beast only whimpered softly and nuzzled his cheek against my palm. I felt the ragged texture of the scar I hadn’t bothered to heal. It cuts diagonally across his face, the remnants of the gash that had destroyed his left eye. I had restored the eye, but left the scar. Fine hemming was never my strong suit, and anyway, I had larger concerns. 

He has other scars – large and small, leftovers of a rushed healing. His scalp is just a patchwork of knotted tissue on his left side. His right arm still hangs a little crooked, though it seems to cause him no pain. I suppose I should finish my work. But it’s already so hard, staring into Yosha’s eyes and seeing nothing but emptiness. I don’t think I could bear it if I restored his face completely. The scars help remind me that he is Beast now. 

Unless he tells me different. One day… when I teach him to speak enough… 

When I steal snatches of sleep, I dream of the day he will turn to me and say “Of course I’m still Yosha. I’ve been Yosha all along – why couldn’t you see that?” 

**Bloomfall – ten days since revival**

Success! Beast’s fine motor skills have improved enough to allow for proper table manners. He can scoop up pottage on flatbread now, instead of simply shoving his face into the bowl like a zwoot at the trough. I will not burden him knowledge of spoons just yet. Finger foods remain the order of the day. 

He seems to like honeyed locusts. Strange. Yosha never cared for them. 

Bloomfall – twenty-three days since revival 

I didn’t put Beast into a forced sleep today. He fell asleep by himself, just before noon, and more fool I, I thought I could sneak home and back before he knew I was gone. I blame my own weariness. 

Of course he awoke was I was gone, and of course he pitched a fit even a Go-Back would be ashamed of. Broken pottery, torn pillows, and Beast battered and bruised from throwing himself against the walls. But I can’t blame him. I wept with him when I realized how frightened he must have been, waking up alone in the dark. 

“I’m sorry, Beast,” I told him. “I’m so sorry.” 

“N-no,” he wept. “No leave me!” 

Savah’s bones! Those were his last words to me before he died. Don’t leave me, Melati, he cried, as he lost his grip on the rocks. 

“No, Beast, I’ll never leave you,” I want to say. But I can’t. My absences are being remarked upon, and in truth the lack of sleep is beginning to wear on me. They say elves can learn to live without it, but I have my doubts. And I can’t afford to be careless. Not when I have Beast to protect. 

I’m starting to think I ought to steal Flitrin again, and have it wrap Beast up for a good month so I can rest. But of course, that’s impossible. The bug seems to have forgotten all about that secret favor he did for me three years ago, preserving Yosha’s body until I could restore him. But I doubt I can ask for another, without Flitrin telling tales to Lord Haken. 

Lord Haken would not approve of this. I know it. He would want Beast put down, like an ailing jackwolf. Or he would order him kept in wrapstuff until someone could restore his mind completely. Someone – what someone – Leetah? My fool of a father? They cannot even resurrect a dead lizard! 

Whatever they did, they would take Beast away from me. I know that much. And they would never trust me again. And Pool would have a few more choice words for me besides “Lifetaker.” 

So they can never know. It’s as simple as that. 

And that means Beast must learn to do without me from time to time. Easier said than done. 

I start by teaching him to wait and be patient while I step outside. He weeps and winges and calls “No, Mel, no!” But he stays where he is bid. I walk up the stairs and out into the sunlight, and wait a few moments. Then I return. We try it again, a little longer, this time. Then I seal up the rock door behind me. 

That’s the hardest for him. I can hear, dimly, his wails of terror. As if I hadn’t spent the better part of an hour trying to explain to him that the rock would melt away again at my command. When I open the door again, he comes flying out, all but assaulting me in his haste to hold me again. 

Yosha never used to hug me like that. He knew I preferred other ways of showing affection. I always found the tight press of bodies far too… constrictive. We had our own language of touch, he and I. A brush of fingertips, a rub of shoulders as we walked together. Sometimes – very rarely – he might rest his head in my lap, or against my stomach, as we lay on the rocks watching the clouds shift. But we never piled one on top of the other like a pair of tuftcats. 

I’d pry Beast’s arms off me if I could. But he’s so much stronger now. All I can do is endure his affection. 

It’s… not as awkward as I might have thought. 

**Bloomfall – thirty days since revival**

Another landmark day. I coaxed Beast outside to see the stars. He was terrified of the emptiness, the lack of walls. But as his eyes adjusted, he was transfixed by the night sky. And when the moons rose, first Daughter, then Mother, he became to leap and jabber in astonishment. 

**Dustdance – forty-eight days since revival**

I don’t feel tired anymore. It seems the body can adapt to a life without sleep. 

We have a new routine, Beast and I. I spend the night with him, and the day in Oasis. He doesn’t entirely understand why I have to go away, but he has learned that if he sleeps the day will pass faster, and that I will always return in time, bearing fresh food and new games to amuse him. He is learning so fast now. He knows enough words to make an attempt at sentences, though I have to bite my tongue to keep from correcting his mangled grammar. 

His mind needs constant diversions. I’ve already taught him how to play toss-stone and siege. Now I’m teaching him to shape clay into simple sculptures, and how to harden them over the fire. In time, I hope to teach to him to read. 

He is growing restless in the cave, for all my games. Where the outside world used to terrify him, now he is eager to see what lies beyond the rock walls. I took him out this morning to watch the sun rise. The dust in the air from the summer storms made the colors exceptionally vivid. As the first limb of the Daystar crept over the eastern horizon, he began to tremble. 

“Fire! Too big – put it out! Burns!” 

He must have been thinking of his earlier misadventures with candleflame. 

“It’s not that kind of fire,” I said patiently. “Think of it as… a giant lamp – far far away from us. So big we can see its light and feel its heat – but its flames won’t touch us. See, it’s rising. Just like when I string up the lantern. It will travel across the sky all day, then it will come down in the west, to be relit the next day.” 

He considered it thoughtfully. He watched the clouds in the east turn every shade of flame as the sun rose higher. The heavy dust in the air made the sky red as blood. He was stunned into silence at the sight of it. 

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” I asked. 

“W-what beau-ti-ful?” 

“Oh.” I made a dismissive wave. I suppose I was a little embarrased at being caught in a moment of sentiment. “Pleasing to the senses.” But by his frown he didn’t quite understand. “What looks nice… smells nice, sounds nice.” 

“What nice? How know what p-p-pleases?” 

“Oh, there are no rules. It’s… it’s something you feel.” But as he continued to watch him skeptically, I wondered again, if he was capable of such refined thoughts. Did jackwolves understand beauty? Did humans? 

“Food feeds the belly, yes?” I attempted. “Beauty… feeds the heart. You feel it – here.” I touched the glossy scar on his breastbone, where I had burned his skin in my haste to force his spirit back into his body. 

He nodded. He looked to the sunrise again, then back at me. He reached out with his right hand – the one that still curled a little like a claw – and clumsily ran his knuckles against my hair. “Like you…” 

“Yes, good. The colors are the same, aren’t they?” 

“Beau-ti-ful. Feel… here.” He touched his heart with his left hand. And he smiled, that dazzled, awestruck smile I always mocked when Yosha flashed it. 

I didn’t mock it today. Today I felt something different. A hitch of breath, a claw in the belly. 

**Staleheat – four months since revival**

I take Beasts for walks every night. He is clumsy at first. He cannot abide footwear of any kind, and he cuts his bare feet to ribbons against the rocks. He is forever catching his tunic on prickers and thorns. But he loves exploring. He always hungers to learn something new. 

I enrich our nightly lessons with stories: silly childhood stories like Maleen used to tell us. How Daughter Moon was born. How the Daystar burned the desert gold. Where rains comes from. He finds “rain” the hardest concept to understand. He can picture sun and moon coupling in the sky like a pair of lizards, but he cannot imagine water falling from the sky. 

He will soon enough. 

_[several entries eroded]_

**Bonedry – eight months since revival**

We found a dead bird today: a cactus wren, lying untouched and very still in the shadow of a rock. The moons were bright; the perfect night for another nature walk. I had hoped to show Beast the ravine just north of the cave, but the dead bird provided a different kind of lesson. 

“Why not wake?” Beast asked, all concern. He loves the little wrens; in the dawning hours he will wait impatiently for them to emerge from their spiny nests, and try to call them out with imitations of their many songs. 

“He’s dead. I’m sorry.” 

“What dead?” 

Savah’s bones – what a question to ask! And of me! What could I do? I told him. 

“It is when the spirit leaves the body, and never comes back.” 

“What spirit?” 

“It is… the spark inside us. The fire that keeps us warm and gives us breath. It is your thoughts, your feelings. It’s what makes you different than a rock or a piece of cloth. All living creatures are born with one – and they can lose it.” 

“How?” 

“When… the body is broken. The spirit is like water–” 

“You said like fire!” 

“Well, it’s like water too,” I said, a little shortly. “And the body is like a cup. When the cup breaks, the water spills. The spirit goes… away.” 

“Where?” 

“I don’t know exactly. Many places. It’s like… like a bit of sand caught in the wind. It can go anywhere. It’s… like flying. The bird’s spirit is flying forever now,” I add gently, hoping to cheer him. “And it will never tire again, never need to sleep or to eat.” 

“Sing?” 

“No… it will never sing again either.” 

He hugged his knees to his chest and let out a thin wail of despair. What was he feeling? Was it only grief for the bird, or had I triggered a memory? Oh, for the power to just reach into his mind and find out. But instead I had to wait with mounting impatience for him to calm himself. 

“What’s wrong?” 

“Poor bird… poor bird,” he murmured. 

I should have known better, but I wanted to see him smile again. 

I put my hands on the bird. It was easily done; the creature hadn’t been dead for more than an hour. Its mind was like fresh tinder, waiting for a spark. The bird flew away, and Beast shrieked and clapped his hands in wonder. 

“How?” he demanded. 

“It’s something I can do.” 

“Can I do?” 

“No, Beast. It’s a special talent of mine.” 

“You fixed the cup! Put back water. You said couldn’t. But you did! How-how?” 

“I’m not entirely sure. It’s easy to fix the body. The spirit… sometimes it lingers near the body – it’s easy to catch. Sometimes… I wonder if I simply catch whatever happens to float by. Maybe I put the spirit of a fox inside that bird. 

“Haha! Fox-bird! Fox-bird!” 

And whose spirit did I catch with you, Beast? I asked the question silently, but it is almost as if Beast can hear my thoughts, for he suddenly turns and looks at me sharply. “My spirit leave body.” 

I felt a chill, though I was wrapped up snugly in zwoot wool against the predawn frost. “No! No, you’re wrong.” 

“I go… see things… when I sleep. Not here. I… fly on the wind.” 

“Oh!” Relief washed over me. “Those are called dreams. We all have them.” 

“Scare me.” 

“Yes, sometimes they can be frightening. What do you see that scares you?” 

“Falling.” 

I caught my breath sharply. “Falling?” 

He nodded. “Falling, always falling. Sand on the wind. I go up… I come down, so fast.” He rocked back and forth on his tailbone, as he always does when he is very agitated. “I want to fly – I want to _flyyyyyyyyy,_ ” he whined. “But fall. Always end with fall.” 

“Oh, Yosha,” I exclaimed, forgetting myself. 

He seized on it. “What Yosha? Why that word?! Why you say that word when sad?” 

What could I say? I can never seem to lie to him. 

“Beast, what’s the first thing you can remember?” 

“What?” 

“The first thing that you ever recall happening? Please – this is important.” 

“Falling,” he repeated. “Fall on… rock. I look up… hurts… scared. But you there!” he brightened. “And not scared anymore. Never scared with you. Mel? Mel, why cry?” 

“I’m not crying.” I wiped at my eyes, but my wet eyelashes had already betrayed me. “You... were flying… like sand on the wind. Your spirit… it was far, far away from your body, just like that bird. Your body… it was broken, empty. It had no spirit. The one who lived in it before... he had left it. Yosha… that was his name – your name, before you died.” 

He stared at me like he couldn’t understand a word I was saying. I rushed on ahead. “I healed you, just like I did the bird. I called your spirit down. I brought you back to life. Do you remember?” 

Beast shook his head. Slowly, he looked down at the sand where the bird had lain. “I… dead? Like bird?” 

“You were. Like the bird. Now you’re not.” I tried to smile. But I was disturbed by the way he looked at his hands, comparing the one against the other. 

“How I dead?” he asked. 

“It… it was a long time ago, Beast. Don’t fret about it?” 

“How I dead?!” he repeated, angry now. 

“You fell,” I said honestly. “You were climbing rocks, and you fell. I tried to heal you, but I couldn’t. Your spirit was already gone.” 

“But you caught it. You said!” 

Did I? I thought I had. He remembers me. He remembers the songs. He must be Yosha, deep down. But for all I know, he’s just another kind of fox-bird. 

“Later,” I said. “I… I tried to call Yosha back to me. I caught his – your spirit.” Maybe if I say it often enough, I will finally believe it. 

Beast said nothing. He seemed lost in thought. 

“Come,” I said. “It’s time we get back inside.” 

* * * 

I keep hoping he will ask me more about Yosha – about his life before. But he doesn’t. He is far more interested in playing another round of toss-stone, or sculpting a new set of clay cups. I think he’s forgotten about Yosha, as quickly as he forgot about the bird we saved. 

Five days since we found that bird, I asked him if he’d like to hear a story about his former life. “A story about Yosha?” I offered encouragingly. 

He shook his head. “Why not?” I asked. 

“Makes you sad,” was all he would tell me. When I tried to press him further, he turned his face to the wall and brooded silently. He’s growing quite moody lately. Yosha was never moody. 

**Rainsign – ten months since revival**

The floods have come. Beast delights in the rain pouring down from the sky. He laughs and laps at the water spilling over his face. Even the crackling thunder doesn’t seem to trouble him. He stamps his feet in the mud in time with the noise. 

He’s grown like a weed these last few months. I have to look up to meet his eyes now. His voice is beginning to deepen. Yosha was three days my elder when he died; now I outrank Beast by three years. His body was still that of a long-limbed child when I awoke him. But he’s slowly becoming a proper lad. The prospect frightens me on some deep, indescribable level. I feel control slipping away from me. 

“Come out of the rain,” I told him this morning. We had to head back to the cave. The sun was already starting to rise behind the clouds. Gray light slanted through the clouds. I had to start home soon if I wanted to get back at Oasis before breakfast. 

He joined me under the rocky overhang. He shook himself off like a dog, making me flinch at the spray of water. He does this on purpose, I think. Beast has become much more of a tease than Yosha ever was. 

“Sit,” I commanded, and he obeyed, squirming like Longfeather’s toddling child as I toweled off with my wool blanket. “Oh, stop fussing.” 

I sopped up the worst of the rain while Beast curled up against my side. It helps to think of him as a chilled animal seeking body warmth – simple bestial instinct. A cub snuggling up to its mother. Such thoughts distract me from another possibility, equally instinctive. 

Yosha and I were never lovemates in the truest sense. He was too young and shy – everyone knows maidens flower faster than lads. And I… what was I? Too guarded, I suppose. The triumph of caution over instinct. Oh, I felt the fire – if not for Yosha, than for his elders: sleek Feathersnake, brash Foxtail, noble Klipspringer. But I never acted on it: not in joining, not in petting, not even in a stolen kiss and a quick retreat. It helped that Klipspringer was forbidden sweets – and quite oblivious to any gaze but his lifemate's. It helped that Foxtail was too loud, too… wolf-like. And as for Feathersnake, I told myself I was simply biding my time to approach him. 

But its been four years now, and I’ve yet to approach anyone. And I’ve fled every time some dirt-digger fool has offered me comfort. Why? Because it would be disloyal to Yosha, who so expected he would be my first and only? I never promised him such. I’m not a troll, to be lifemated by my parents’ wishes! Why shouldn’t I join with whoever desires me? 

Fear, I suppose. Loss of control. 

Guilt, because I do want him now – now that he is gone, and I’m left with this… imperfect copy. This mirror image who clings to me and tells me I feed his heart. Who grows a little more graceful and a little more handsome every day, whose voice is deepening to an alluring growl… 

I’m glad I kept his scars. They’re quite captivating in their own way. The line across his nose calls attention to his stormy–gray eyes. The gnarls of bone on his elbow and shoulder compliment the lean muscles of his arm. And the whorl of scar tissue on his scalp makes such a striking contrast to the silver hair that still crowns the right side of his head. I often alternate, stroking his hair, then his scars, lulling him to sleep every night. I can quite lose myself in the texture of his scars. 

The rain began to slacken. It slowed to a lazy drizzle, and Beast let out a whine of disappointment. 

“It’s almost time for bed,” I told him. 

“No, not yet.” 

“It’s getting late, Beast.” So late, in fact, I could hear Lady Chani sendings, just brushing the edge of my mind. **Melati? Where are you? Don’t tell me you’ve gone wandering in this wretched weather!** 

**Just watching the pod-frogs hatching out of the mud,** I sent back casually. I have found the less thought one puts into the lie, the harder it is to scent. Really, the more I practice at lying in sending, the more I grow convinced that all elves could lie in sending, if only they wouldn’t act so guilty about it. 

“Where do you go when I sleep?” 

His question startled me. It’s the longest string of consecutive words he’s uttered in days, and delivered in a confident tone I had not heard from him before. 

“I’ve told you before,” I said. “I have to find us food. Supplies. I have duties–” 

“With other elves?” 

Did he overhear the sending? For a moment I could almost think so. 

“W-what other elves? What are you talking about?” 

“Must be other elves. Must be more than two.” The look he gave me was one of sly calculation. I’d never seen such cleverness in his eyes since… before. 

“More than two birds,” he continued, logically. “More than two ravvits. More than two stars. Must be more than two elves.” 

I didn’t know what to say. I’d never been at a loss for words before. When did this halfwit learn to outwit me? I babbled something – the details escape me now: The other elves don’t matter. They have nothing to do with us. They live far away. You must stay hidden. They wouldn’t understand. A dozen half-truths and evasions. Why is it I can lie to a High One, but not to him? 

Nothing would satisfy Beast. He seized on every moment’s hesitation. He shouted at me, he stamped his feet. Chani’s sendings grew more urgent as she sensed my distractedness. **Melati, have you eaten already? Shall I save you something? Melati?** 

Chani pestering me silently, Beast shouting loud enough to send echos off the rocks – I couldn’t begin to answer either of them. 

“You lied to me!” Beast accused. 

“I’m trying to tell you the truth.” 

**Melati? What are you up to? I refuse to believe the pod-frogs are that fascinating.** 

Thought I knew I would pay for it later, I shut Chani from my mind. Beast needed my full attention. 

“You can’t see the other elves!” I commanded. “They cannot ever know you’re alive.” 

“Why not? Why not?” 

I had one last toss in this match, and I threw hard. “Because Yosha belonged to them!” 

He flinched as though I’d slapped him. I pressed my advantage. “They think he’s dead. They think he’s bone in the ground. They see you and they’ll think you’re him!” 

“I’m not! Not him! I’m Beast – Beast! Beast! Beast!” He stamped his foot in time with his cries. 

“They won’t want a beast,” I said, far too easily. And from the way his face fell, I saw I had gone too far. 

He turned from him and bolted across the rocky plain, running straight for the mountains to the south. Straight for Oasis.


	2. Part Two

I chased after him, but he ran like a wild beast – at a breakneck speed no elf could match. I cursed myself and I cursed him, with every crude oath I had learned from Tufts and Drell. The rain-starved ground was already solidifying after the downpour; his tracks were drying out. But I could still follow them well enough. Whether by chance or design, Beast was running straight for Yosha’s home. 

I caught up with him at Bottle Gulch. The cursed fool had crossed paths with the Pride. 

Of course the hunters were out in the narrow ravine; the first rainfall of the season invariably flooded the uplands and drove a torrent of foaming water downhill. Over the ages, the softer rock had eroded, forming a tapering gulch, like the neck of a fine clearstone bottle. And any animals unlucky enough to be caught in the flash flood ended up at the narrowest point in the ravine, a feast for scavengers. 

The tuftcats had already laid claim to the drowned crescent-horn, but Maleen and Shasu were vigorously defending the three klipspringer corpses as their own catch. Bekah waded through the sticky mud, stabbing pod-frogs with her spear. Coppersky and Tufts calculated the meat available and Sust stood on a rock, looking every bit the proud male tuftcat – strong and handsome and utterly useless without the support of his pride. 

And hiding in a notch cut into the canyon walls, Beast watched the whole scene play out with a child’s fearful excitement. 

They hadn’t seen him yet, and the tuftcats were preoccupied with their feasting. For a moment, I hoped I could reach him before any damage was done. I floated myself down silently until I was only a few paces out of reach. If I could only touch him, I could put him to sleep. But I doubted I could do it without attracting unwanted attention. 

And then Maleen straightened her back and turned to call Shasu over. 

“Help me get this one trussed up.” 

Beast let out a roar of anguish at the sight of her, at the sound of her voice. The sound was heart-rending – and utterly alien: a lion’s roar mingled with an eagle’s screech. Maleen gasped in alarm. The tuftcats looks up from their feast. Coppersky and his daughter dropped into a combat stance, their weapons drawn. Beast flinched at the sudden movements, and from my vantage behind him, I could clearly see the morning light falling on the ruined side of his scalp. 

Maleen saw it too. She screamed. Coppersky let flew his dagger, and Tufts loosed an arrow. Beast fled back into the shadows, scrambling at the rocks to haul himself out of harm’s way. Too late I saw the way. I couldn’t reach him without exposing myself, but I could reach the rock. I made the stone fold over him, sealing him into a soundproof pocket. Not a moment too soon, for Coppersky was close on his heels. 

Be still, Beast, I commanded silently. Oh, if only he could hear my sendings. There was nothing for him to fear – really, it was no different that being sealed inside his cave. He had plenty of air to breath if he did not panic. Door had once sealed Skywise in a similar pocket, and he had been perfectly fine afterwards. 

“What was it?” Coppersky demanded of Maleen. 

“I don’t know. I only caught a glimpse.” 

“Then what did you see?” 

“I don’t know. A head… wrinkled skin… maybe a limb. That noise – what made it?” 

“I think I know.” **Melati!** he sent openly. **Is this more of your work?** 

I saw no alternative. In a moment the tuftcats would pick up my scent. The longer they tarried, the more likely their mounts might hear Beast’s struggles. I stood up and stepped to the lip of the canyon edge. 

“I knew it,” Coppersky growled. 

“Troll-scat!” Sust cried. “What are you playing at now, cub?” 

“I’m not a cub.” 

“Was that another one of your playthings? Last time it was lizard-ravvits – now what – turning klipspringers into bats?” 

Not a bad idea, really. For a Go-Back, he had some imagination after all. 

“A pod-frog into a sunsprinter, actually.” I lied. “Do you like the sound? I thought it would be a good deterrent for wandering humans.” 

“A good deterrent for our prey, more like,” Coppersky sneered. 

“That was larger than any pod-frog – or sunsprinter!” Maleen insisted. 

“Of course I had to make it bigger. You need lungs large enough to make that sound.” 

“Where did it go?” Sust demanded. 

“I don’t know. That way somewhere,” I pointed east. “You frightened it.” 

“I’d like to skewer it. I thought we agreed no more shapechanged.” 

“We didn’t agree anything, Sust. And you don’t command me.” 

“Lord Haken will hear of this.” 

“With you ravvits chittering away, I don’t doubt it. I’d take that meat in before it starts to molder.” 

“Where are you going?” he demanded as I turned away. 

“I’m getting out of the rain,” I called back. I walked well out of sight of the elves in the ravine below; then I opened up the ground underneath me and sunk a hole down towards Beast’s hiding place. 

I could feel the vibrations in the rock from his helpless thrashing, but I forced myself not to rush. I sealed the shaft behind me, lest Coppersky try to run me down. Then I shaped a horizontal tunnel until I freed him. I could hear his screams even before I peeled back the last layer of rock. He flew at me in the dark, pummelling me with his fists, even as he wept with relief. I took his hands in mine and held him close until he could calm himself. 

“You’re safe now,” I whispered. “You’re safe. They can’t hurt you.” 

Slowly, I walked him back through the tunnel. He moaned and sobbed, but I refused to listen to his pleas for light. When we reached the bottom of the shaft I bade him sit, and I snapped my fingers to create a spark. It only burned for a moment, but it was long enough for him to see that he was in no danger of being crushed by the walls. 

“See? Safe.” 

“Why?” he demanded. “Why they want to hurt me? What did I do?” 

“They were frightened. I told you they wouldn’t understand.” 

“Don’t want a beast,” he repeated my thoughtless words. Then he cried desperately. “Elf. Like you. But not. Hair black! Who? That face – I know that face! Who is that?” 

“She’s your… she’s Yosha’s mother.” 

“She saw me. She was fright’d. Why?” 

“She didn’t know you.” 

He seized my shoulders in the darkness. “Why do I know her?” 

I didn’t have an answer for him. 

.* * * 

I was no hurry to return for my public scolding. And I had to see Beast settled away first. So it was midafternoon before I showed my face in the council chamber. At least I was spared the entire council’s censure: Ahdri and Grayling were absent. But Sun-Toucher was there, as was Grandmother – positively aglow with malicious joy to see me in trouble again. 

It went much as I had expected: Grandmother gave me another lecture about the evils of flesh-shaping – wagging her finger for emphasis, until Lady Chani – spirits bless her – scolded Grandmother in turn for being so close-minded. “For a healer, you are remarkably reluctant to use your gifts.” 

Door and Spar had no objections to my work, while Lord Haken was clearly torn between wanting to praise my inventiveness and preserving his authority. “What was the animal, exactly?” 

“A sunstrider, originally. But I removed its beak, then grafted a pod-frog’s voice bag onto the bird’s throat. Then I enlarged the whole creature until it was… the size of a small elf-child.” 

“Small!” Maleen interjected. “I swear, it looked almost as big as me!” 

“Well, you didn’t get a really good look at it, did you?” Door smiled indulgently. “Where is the animal now, Melati?” 

“I don’t know. After all the fuss the hunters made, it took off.” I shrugged. “It will probably die soon. The first attempts usually do.” 

“‘First attempts’ – listen to yourself, child!” Grandmother Leetah wrung her hands. “How many animals have suffered needlessly for your curiosity? My lord Haken, how can you continue to indulge her. You call the Wolfriders savages, but even they would chastise a child who tortured animals for sport.” 

“It’s not for sport!” I snapped. “It’s for knowledge!” 

“But knowledge of what, my dear?” Chani asked. “What do you mean to accomplish by these trials?” 

“Everything! I want to unlock the mysteries of the flesh… to make it obey me as easily as green-growing things heed Meerkat. Imagine the possibilities: zwoots that eat half the feed yet give twice the milk; flightless rock quails the size of boulders.Look at the jackwolves – Fennec says their blood has run so thin fewer than half the cubs born live to become mounts. He mounts dangerous live-hunts to find new breeding stock – but what if I could fix the ills with a simple touch? Why should we need the Pride or the Jackwolf Riders to patrol for humans, when I could create beasts that would scare the five-fingers away for good?” I turned to Haken. “You said our kind used to grow new shells – that spirits could slip into fresh bodies as easily as donning new clothes. Imagine if we could do that again!” 

“It can’t be done. Not on this world.” 

“Don’t tell me ‘can’t!’” I shrieked. My own vehemence startled me. 

“We can do it,” I insisted. “It only takes time and practice. We can… grow gardens of flesh and harvest it like any other resource. When Bonebat wanted his wings, it took my sire months to stretch his flesh… a little bit at a time. Windkin’s father paid for his wings with agonizing pain and brittle bones. But what if we could simply grow new parts and shape them like clay, then graft them to the body?” I turned to Maleen. “What if I could grow a new shell for Yosha–” 

“Don’t! Don’t you dare use him – my Yosha would never consent to become one of your monsters!” 

Her words were a slap in the face. One of my monsters… is that what I had made him into? 

Sust brought us all back to the matter at hand. “After that we found that scaled ravvit, Melati swore she would not make any more monsters–” 

Anger flared in me again. “It was a harmless little creature and you killed it.” 

“Harmless? It took a bite the size of my fist out of Shaggycat.” 

“I healed your wretched cat. What more do you want?” 

“I want you to keep your word. As you promised Haken. There is one lord in Oasis, and we all know what happens to elves who defy him.” 

I heard the bitterness in his voice. He is a Go-Back; he was not born to wear a yoke like a zwoot at the plow. But he has chosen to honor Haken as his “chief” – with all the sacrifices involved – and if he can find it in his pride to bow down, then everyone else should too. 

Scouter couldn’t. My wild wolf-blooded grandsire – just thinking of him makes me feel dirty, as though I have inherited his disease. Sometimes I even dream of a blood-red wolf that stalks me. But I always kill it with a touch, just as I did when I was still in my mother’s womb. I pushed the wolf away from me, out of every cell in my formless body. Lifetaker, my mortal father calls me, but he’s wrong. Before I took my mother’s life, I saved my own. 

Sust’s pronouncement discontented Haken. “You did swear not to make any more creatures without my permission,” he reminded me. 

“I did, my lord. But I should not have. I cannot abandon my work. I cannot abide ignorance.” 

“No one wants to keep you ignorant, child. We simply want to see you properly guided–” 

“By who? Grandmother? She won’t do anything more elaborate the piercing ears! By you? With respect, my lord,” I added hastily, “but you have no experience, and no desire. You won’t even try to grow a new arm!” 

Everyone drew in a gasp at that, as if it was so shocking to speak the truth. Savah’s crown, he lets the human call him the Maimed One! And though even Chani widened her eyes at my daring, Haken simply smiled tightly. “Flesh is finite, little one. And I have no wish to be as short as you, just to spare the meat to make a new arm.” 

“But don’t you see – it doesn’t have to be that way!” 

“Enough. Myself, I have little objection to you making these little creatures – though I suspect they are less stepstones to discoveries than they are an artist’s fancy. I admire art – I do. In the days of the Homestar, we had many like you, who created masterpieces of flesh. But your art is disturbing the others, and Oasis must remain a place of harmony.” 

I saw the way. “Then grant me leave to make them away from Oasis! I’ll go north… not far… only a walk of an hour or two. I’ll build a cave or I’ll stop up a canyon and make a pen where I can keep my projects. Where you can come and inspect them. You direct me, lord Father, and I will make whatever creatures you think will best serve Oasis.” 

“And what of your healer’s duties?” Leetah demanded. 

“You can handle them well enough on your own.” 

“And your lessons? You still have much to learn.” 

“I learned all you could teach me when I was five!” 

Haken’s mouth twitched in a smile, I knew I had won the battle. The rest was just details. 

* * * 

Beast had thrown another fit while I was away. I returned to the cave to find broken pottery and torn blankets. I found Beast himself sitting by the spring, staring glumly at his reflection. 

“Well, that was ungrateful,” I announced as I sat down next to him. “And after I worked so hard to convince them you were nothing but an overgrown pod-frog.” 

Beast swatted at his reflection with his crippled right hand. 

“What’s the matter with you now?” I asked meanly. After the day I’d endured, I had little patience for his moods. 

“I look… dif-fer-ent,” he pronounced with effort. 

“You look the same you always have.” 

“Not like other elves.” He pawed at the scar tissue on his scalp. “Why? Yosha – he looked like this?” 

“No, he didn’t.” 

“Why these?” he indicated his scars. “Others don’t have them.” 

“They show where you were hurt. They show where I fixed you.” 

“Where he was hurt!” 

“Where he was hurt,” I corrected. 

“You fixed death. Why did you not fix these?” 

“I… I suppose I didn’t want you looking too much like Yosha,” I admitted. “I wanted to remind myself that you’re Beast now.” 

I thought the answer might please him. But he only stared at his reflection critically. “Not beautiful,” he pronounced at length. 

“Don’t say that!” 

“Beautiful… feeds the heart. You said. But this… this feeds no hearts.” 

I touched his chin, turned his face to force him to look at me. “It feeds my heart,” I told him firmly. And I meant it. 

He blinked uncertainly. Then the worry melted from his face, and he stared at me with a look of helpless adoration. 

“But I can change it if you like,” I offered. “I can make you look like whatever pleases you.” 

He smiled, almost shyly. “No. What pleases you, Mel. Ever what pleases you.” 

The knife twisted in my belly again. My heart was racing in a panic. He said those words hours ago, yet I can still hear them echoing in my mind. I shiver all over just thinking of that moment. I’m as sick at heart as I was the night Yosha died. But at the same time I was to sing for joy. Why? Why? 

High Ones, is this love? 

**Bloomtide – one year since revival**

I have been expanding the cave, making work rooms for my experiments, and hidden chambers underneath for Beast. Haken will insist on visiting often, I am sure of it. He has already come by several times to inspect the progress, but he cannot sense Beast lurking in the hidden chambers below. 

Beast needs little persuasion to stay hidden. He has lost all his interest in other elves, since the morning in Bottle Gulch. He is far more curious about the wrens, all aflurry to breed in the short season of flood-and-flower. 

There is one young male near our cave – Beast is convinced it is the one I healed last winter, and will not be corrected. It’s a yearling bird, entering its first courtship. Beast loves to watch the bird build its mock-nests in the hollows of the pricker plants, loves to listen to its nightly song. 

“A little lass-wren will hear his song and come,” I explained yesterday. “And if she likes the nests he’s build for her, she’ll choose whichever pleases her most and make it her own. And then they’ll be lovemates.” 

“What is… l-love-mates?” he asked curiously. 

“You know… when creatures come together for breeding… or just for comfort. For pleasure. Like Mother Moon and the Daystar. They already had their child, but they still join at every eclipse. That wren: if he finds a lass who likes him, she’ll stay with him and they’ll live together and have baby birds.” 

He nodded, deep in thought. He looked at me as if he want to ask me something, but he couldn’t find the right words. And I: I felt myself dismembering every word I had given him. Creatures coming together for comfort and pleasure… a lass who likes a lad… 

* * * 

Beast came running to me this evening, as I was making our supper. “Mel! Mel! Come see!” 

He dragged me outside and motioned for me to be quiet. Silently we crept over to the cactus where our little lad-wren has made his nest. A female was perched at his side, and the two birds were grooming each other’s cheeks with little pecks of their beaks. 

“They’re kissing,” I remarked, and my voice did not sound like my own. It sounded… lighter, younger… quite repulsively sentimental, to be honest. But it was such a sweet sight: these two tiny birds sharing a moment of joy, quite oblivious to the frailty of their existence. Strange… to think such simple beasts understood something of love. 

* * * 

When I came to the cave tonight, I found Beast had redecorated. 

I had brought many wool blankets with me over the moon-dances, to soften the simple stone slab where he slept. Now I found them scattered about the cave like carpets, each ornamented with some small token – a clay pot filled with edible flowers, the gamepieces for siege, the beeswax tablet and writing stylus. Beast grinned at my confused expression. 

“Ever which pleases you,” he said proudly. 

**Bloomfall – fourteen months since revival**

I have raised a large rock wall around my cave, three times the height of an elf, and quite impenetrable. One needs to be a rockshaper or an airwalker to enter my domain. The walls enclose a space perhaps the size of Oasis’s inner courtyard – plenty of room for Beast to amuse himself within while I am needed elsewhere. 

I suppose I have to actually create that sunstriding-frog, just to show Haken. It should be done easily enough… 

**Bloomfall – fifteen months since revival**

I can come and go from Oasis openly now. No one opposes me. No one questions me. I no longer need to seal the door when I leave – I trust Beast to limit himself to the rocks nearby, and I trust no other elf will come wandering by. 

I do not always return to Oasis every morning. Sometimes I pass the time working on my experiments, and watching Beast sleep. He has many dreams; I watch him twitch and kick in his sleep nearly every day. I ask him about them. Sometimes he tells me they are good dreams. Sometimes he says nothing. 

He dreams of Yosha’s memories! The sights he is willing to describe are all those Yosha saw. I am more convinced than ever that Yosha’s soul is inside him. But it is buried under so much scar tissue of this creature’s limited brain… I imagine it must be forever dreaming the memories Beast sees when he closes his eyes. 

I hope so. If I think of Yosha’s soul awake and conscious, but trapped as Beast was in my rocky mantle, I feel stricken with horror and disgust. Sometimes I think Beast feels the same. When I see him bolt awake after a bad dream, I imagine he feels like he is being hunted, like Yosha’s spirit is clawing at his mind, trying to force itself free. 

We never speak of Yosha. But he’s always there between us. 

* * * 

I have made a promising creature. I took a rock quail and traded its dull plumage for the bright colors of a rainforest bird. I shaped its tail to grow feathers like a fan-tail. It is an utterly impractical creature, too heavy to fly, and too slow to run. It is purely decorative, and it is just the sort of thing the Gliders and the Sun Folk would adore. 

Haken is pleased with the result. He says I can bring it to Oasis to show the others. 

_[several entries begun, then erased. Remains illegible]_

Beast had another nightmare yesterday. I was sitting by his bedside and watching him sleep as I often do. I find it oddly meditative, watching his chest rise and fall, timing my breaths to his. But then he began to thrash again, and moan into his pillow. “No, no,” he whimpered. “Mel… no… don’t… no – unh!” He flailed helplessly against his blankets, crying out in pain. 

“Beast, wake up!” I shook him until his eyes open. He saw me leaning over him, and he scrambled to sit up, to bury his face in my neck, to cling to me like a helpless child. He gasped for breath. I could feel his heart hammering. 

“Don’t leave me!” he cried, and for those three words, his speech was clear and precise. He spoke with Yosha’s voice. 

“Shh, I’m here. I’m here, Beast. Poor Beast, were you falling again?” 

He nodded vigorously. “Always fall… fall. Rocks… so many rocks! I try to hold on, but can’t. I want to fly, but I fall.” 

“I know. I know.” 

“He falls! Not me. Him – him – him!” 

“He was you, once.” 

“No no no!” he weeps. “No more. No more falling. No more Yosha.” He looks up at me helplessly. “Make him go away!” 

“I’m so sorry, Beast. I don’t know how to reach him. If I could… I’d bring all the good memories up, and wipe all the bad ones away.” I closed my eyes tight. I didn’t want to remember that night, and my part in his violent death. If only I hadn’t closed my mind to him. If only I hadn’t let him go. 

“You were there…” he said at length, as if he could read my thoughts. 

“Yes…” I admitted. “And I let you fall. I’m so sorry. I didn’t –” my voice broke, choked by unshed tears. I feel salt scratching my eyes. “It was all my fault. I let you die. I failed you – I’m a lifetaker, just like he always said! I destroy everything I touch and I destroyed you, Yosha, and I’m so so sorry for it–” 

It took only a moment for our positions to reverse. Suddenly I was the one sobbing in his arms, a broken bird in need to healing. I was lost, adrift in sorrow. And he held me, and stroked my hair, and murmured my name against my ear until I slowly came back to myself. 

He made me look at him. His eyes were red-rimmed, but his gaze was steady. “You… saved me,” he insisted in his halting speech. “I… breathe – I think – I feel… because of you!” 

His voice was so full of gratitude, I could feel my heart breaking all over again. “Oh… Beast,” I whispered, as I kissed his brow. Poor simple Beast, who thought the half-life I had given him was anything to treasure. I pressed my lips to the jagged scar over the bridge of his nose. I stroked a tear off his unblemished cheek and kissed the trail of moisture it had left behind. 

He pounced, swift as a cat. His crippled hand came around the base of my skull. His mouth covered mine, forceful, demanding. When I gasped in alarm he only deepened the kiss, and when I braced my hands against his shoulders, his other arm came around my waist, holding me fast. This wasn’t the chaste little peck of courting wrens, and High Ones knew this was nothing like the shy advances Yosha had ever attempted. This was a dying elf clawing for life. This was a predator savaging his prey. 

And I never wanted it to stop. 

When the kiss had left us both breathless, I found the will to restrain him, if only a little. “Wait, wait!” I stammered. “Beast – this – this is only something for lovemates.” 

“Love you!” he cried fervently, and I knew he meant it. How – how did I know it, when I couldn’t touch his mind? And how could we join bodies, when I knew that great chasm would always exist between our souls? It was wrong. It was unjust, to me and to him. But it was all we could have. 

He reached for me again, and this time I did not resist. 

I always imagined joining would be something… poetic: a tender, beautifully unfolding dance. But this was clumsy and brutal: two bodies desperately trying to become one, since two minds never could. This was bloodsong run amok. 

It was perfect.


	3. Chapter 3

**Dustdance – three years since revival**

I have been woefully negligent in my notetaking of late. But in truth there is little new to document. I began this record to chronicle of Beast’s recovery, yet he has made no further progress. He is as graceful as any elf, and twice as strong. He has a large spoken vocabulary, though he is always sparing with his words. I have taught him how to read our glyphs, though he has little interest in either reading or writing. I trust him enough to let him roam outside the cave. Sometimes he tries his hand at hunting, and he will return with a rodent he has killed caught barehanded. Mostly he prefers to explore, to study the rocks, the plants, the many little animals. He keeps no drawings or notes – he stores all his knowledge in his head, like my great-grandfather Sun-Toucher. It is almost as if he wants to fill his head with new memories, to crowd out the old ones. 

He still isn’t Yosha. He doesn’t want to be Yosha. That has been the hardest lesson to learn. 

But I desire him all the same. 

Sometimes I curse him too, for abandoning Yosha just as I did. You fool, I want to scream at him. You have the soul of one of the finest elves ever born on this world, yet you will not even honor his memory. 

Sometimes I feel it is my just punishment, to have my soulbrother forever close, but not quite close enough. And I try to content myself with this cruel justice. 

When we join, it is a special kind of agony. His body answers my touch without fail, but his mind remains locked away. And though his caresses sate all my physical senses, I can never quite shake this feeling of emptiness inside my heart. 

The Sun Folk were not always skilled senders. In the days before the Palace reawakened, all but the eldest among them had lost the ability to touch another’s mind. Only in moments of Recognition could they feel the connection that we all now take for granted. 

“What was it like?” I asked my grandmother once. “I mean: how could you get to know anyone? You must have been all like strangers to each other. How could you trust anyone?” 

I should have known better than to ask her. She gave him some sentimental drivel she counted as wisdom. “Trust is a choice, Melati. We decide to trust those we love.” 

“But how could you love the unknown?” 

She tsked at that, as if it was a child’s question. “Nothing is ever truly known. Even in Recognition, there were parts of Scouter I could touch, but never truly understand. And besides, we all thought of sending as something for the ancient ones, like Savah. We valued the calm of our minds. I’ll admit, when we begin to learn to send again, it was quite disorienting. You of all elves should appreciate that.” 

“What do you mean? Why me ‘of all elves?’” 

She smiled, but even her blind father could have seen the flintiness in her expression. “You value your solitude. You hold everyone at bay, just as our lord does. As if you fear the touch of others might dirty you.” 

I gave her a taste of my touch – a nice pain-sending between her eyes, just enough to make her ears ring. She knew better than to complain to Haken. 

So I went to Longfeather and Drell instead, and asked them how they intended to teach their daughter how to send. She will turn four next moon-dance; she already knows as many words as Beast… she certainly uses more from day to day. I reasoned I could learn something from studying a child’s lessons. 

The parents were less help than Grandmother, if that can be believed. “How will we teach her to send?” Longfeather repeated my question. “Oh, I imagine the same way we taught her to speak and to walk. Simply by doing so ourselves. Children learn by imitating their elders. We’ve been sending to her since she was still in the womb – long before she was able to understand. She’s been projecting little bursts of feelings since she was born. Now Drell and I often ask her questions in sending as well as speech. I imagine when she is ready she’ll send back.” 

I turned to Drell. “You didn’t learn to send as a child, did you? I mean, the Go-Backs never really believed in it, did they? Because of that… chief of yours. She had no use for magic, did she? She forbade it.” 

“Oh, not really,” Drell insisted. A lifetime in Oasis, and she still felt the need to defend her birth-tribe and its long-dead chief. “It wasn’t that she thought it useless – more that she thought it dangerous. Anything she couldn’t control was dangerous. But if you could prove you had some skill, and that you could follow orders, she could favor a magic-user.” 

“But sending: how did you learn it?” 

“Oh… the same way anyone does. Practice. We didn’t even try to learn to send until we were old enough to join the hunt. Silence, you understand. Our elders would just keep sending to us until we learned to hear them and answer back.” 

So much for their help. As if I hadn’t been sending at Beast every day since I brought him to life. I pitch my thoughts to locksend to Yosha’s mind. I whisper in open sending, softly enough that only his mind could hear me. I have coaxed and massaged at his mind with my healing powers, until he turns away complaining of a headache. I tried everything I can, but still his mind refuses to open. It’s enough to make lose all hope. 

I did finally make that overgrown pod-frog, though its call is nowhere as powerful as Beast’s. It was quite sickly and very ugly-looking, and Haken ordered me to keep it at my workshop. It suits me fine. The frog-thing died – its throat swelled with tumors not a month after I’d made it – but no one else needs to know that. Whenever Beast lets out a roar that echoes off rocks, I simply blame that dead frog. 

Otherwise, my successes have been meager. The fan-tailed birds I made are utterly disappointing: they tend to die before they can breed, and even when they do, their eggs hatch into ordinary quail. 

But I have been working – mostly at rockshaping. My workshop and its barrier wall have grown large enough to be glimpsed from the walls of Oasis. I’ve heard the elves are calling it Melati’s Spire. Reknown is a mixed blessing. I do enjoy watching my elders lower their eyes when I walk past. But the curious keep making forays out to my workshop, hoping to catch a glimpse of the next creature I will create. Thank the High Ones that all the Gliders are too well-bred to spy, but yesterday Beast spotted Tufts and Foxtail sneaking around. They tried to peek through the walls, but one good roar from Beast sent them running with their tails properly tucked under their rumps. 

I wish I knew how he can make such a sound – loud and resonant as a mountain lion’s roar. I did nothing to tamper with his lungs or voice when I revived him, yet when he wants to, he can sound as frightening as the monsters of Wolfrider legends. 

The echoes of his cry roused me from my daysleep, in the shade of a large overhang. I sat up in time to see Beast scampering down the rocks, all aglow with pride. “They ran!” He was panting for breath like a jackwolf. “They ran like… ravvits!” 

“Good boy.” I patted the sleeping mat beside me. “Now tell me all about these ravvits.” 

“Two elves! And a big cat. The maiden: she had dark skin – darker than ours. And her head – what happened to it? No hair anywhere! Even I have hair!” He twisted a lock around his finger to call my attention to it. 

“Oh, that’s Tufts. Yes, she’s shaved the whole thing clean like an egg again. She does that every few years.” 

“Why?” 

“Boredom, I suppose.” I couldn’t help but laugh at his bewildered expressions. “It will grow back, Beast, don’t worry. Just like yours keeps getting shaggy no matter how many times I trim it. Who else? You said there were two elves.” 

“Male. Red hair like… a thistle-top.” He tried to gesture, to conjure up the fullness of it. A fountain of hair, the color of rust. 

“Foxtail. Although I think I will call him Thistletop the next time I see him, just to see his face.” 

“They climbed on the cat – and it let them!” 

“Tufts is a cat rider. You’ve see her before. But maybe you didn’t see her ride. No, she can’t do that with any cat,” I added, when I could see the way his thoughts were heading. “And no one can tame the mountain lions, don’t you even think of it.” 

Beast looked sheepish. Then his thoughts darted off in another direction. “They lovemates?” 

“Tufts and Foxtail? Oh, I’m sure he’s one of her lads. Tufts is what we call a ‘freetouch,’” I added snidely, but that did little to enlighten him. “It means she’s always looking for another body in her bed.” 

He sounded shocked. “Why?” 

“That’s boredom too, I suppose. Some folk like variety.” 

He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “You are not a… freetouch.” 

His jealousy was quite endearing, artless as it was. “No, I’m a Beast-touch,” I told him. “You’re all I need in my bed.” 

It’s true. Other lads continue to approach me, usually craven, perfumed crafters, the kind my grandmother prefers. I suspect she sends them after me; how typical of Leetah, to think a good lovemaking will cure all that ails a soul. As if a ravvit could satisfy me when I have a beast waiting at home. 

I reject them all. Everyone thinks I am a new Savah, sworn to lived untouched since my true love has died. It’s a good tale, properly tragic and beautiful. Even Maleen is beginning to warm to me again, since it seems I am determined to martyr myself to Yosha’s memory. I wonder what they would think if they knew the truth. I wonder what Maleen would say if she knew I coupled nightly with the monster I had made of her son. 

Sometimes I imagine telling her all this, just to see the look on her face. It amuses me far more than it should. I used to like Maleen. So many things died when Yosha did. 

**Staleheat – three years since revival**

Beast broke his right hand again. “What did you hit this time?” I demanded, as I contemplated his gnarled fingers, his bloody knuckles. 

“Buck,” he murmured bashfully. 

“Oh Beast!” 

“He charged me!” 

“And you didn’t think to get out of the way?” 

“I thought: their meat tastes good.” 

“Then you make yourself a spear or a club and you kill them properly.” 

“I did kill him,” he insisted proudly. “I broke his neck! One hit, just like a lion.” 

“And your hand. Your poor paw.” My pangs of sympathy were laced with guilt. I never had healed his right hand properly, the night I brought him back. The knobs of scarred bone on his knuckles made it look a far more imposing weapon than it really was. No wonder he seems to think he could take down large animals barehanded. 

“If you insist on hunting, you’ll need a weapon,” I told him. “All we have here is a gutting knife, but I suppose you’re fast enough to wield it like a sword.” 

“You make me one.” 

“A blade? I’m no weaponsmith – have you ever seen me at a forge?” 

He held out his maimed hand. “Just like a lion.” 

I frowned. Surely he did not mean I should flesh-shape him. But when I hesitated too long, he shook his hand. “You said you could change it,” he insisted, with a hint of a child’s whine in his voice. 

Flesh-shaping is painful work. Flesh isn’t rock – it fights the shaper’s designs. I flooded Beast’s bloodstream with magic to block his nerves, but still his muscles twitched in protest, and he clenched his teeth as if he was in agony. So I tricked his nerves into reading pain as pleasure, until he sagged against my shoulder, utterly drunk on sensation. Still, it was slow work. My usual tactics are to bludgeon and force the flesh to obey, but I had no wish to break bones and rend muscles. I had to learn gentleness. 

By dawn we were both as spent as if we’d passed the night in heated joining. Beast’s right hand had grown a fraction in size, his wristbones thicker, his fingerbones longer, his nails hardened into claws. The skin had taken on a vaguely scaly texture, touch enough to withstand a blow that would split the flesh of an elf, but still soft enough to feel pleasing under my fingertips. 

I ended up sleeping most of the day away. Once I recover my strength, I will start work on his forearm. A lion’s paw is no use without a strong arm to wield it. 

**Bonedry – three years since revival**

I had visitors to my workshop yesterday. I was so deep in a trance – restringing the sinews of Beast’s right arm – that I didn’t hear the sendings until they were practically at my doorstep. 

“Elves,” I told Beast as I broke off the treatment, leaving him with a wrenched elbow. “Asking to speak to me.” 

“I’ll scare them off,” he offered, but I motioned him to wait on the pallet. 

“No. It’s only Cholla.” Her heart was too frail to risk a fright, especially in the season’s heat. And besides, I’ve always been quite fond of her. “You know – my sire’s old friend. I’ve told you about her.” 

He made a little face. He hates being reminded that I have a life beyond him. 

I told him to stay hidden, and sweetened the order with another rush of soothing magic in his bloodstream. Then I made my way outside and returned the sending. 

**Follow my thoughts. I’ll open the gate for you.** 

At my touch, the hairline fissure in the rock wall opened wide enough to allow entry to the zwoot and its two riders. Klipspringer was the first one down, and he helped Cholla dismount, cradling her in his arms as if she were a baby bird. Normally, Cholla hates to be coddled – nothing will provoke her temper so much as the suggestion that she is any less fit than any other elf. Yet she’ll gladly play the invalid around her lifemate. I used to find it rather repugnantly affecting – like all of Leetah’s flirtatious airs. But I can better understand it now. Each lifemating has a dance all its own. This is theirs. Klipspringer was born to protect and nurture; he shows his love by doting on her, and she shows hers by permitting it. 

“Melati!” Cholla exclaimed cheerfully, as if she were somewhat surprised to see me, as if her sendings hadn’t been rapping on my skull like a fist on a doorframe. 

I smiled thinly in reply. “Hello, Auntie Cholla. What brings you out here? And at this time of day?” 

“I need your help settling a wager I made with ’Springer. I say we haven’t seen you at Oasis for over a greater moon-dance, but he insists it’s only been two eights-of-days.” 

“Subtle,” I said archly. 

Klipspringer shrugged good-naturedly. “She has all her brother’s tact, I’m afraid. But she is a very good cook.” He gestured to a covered basket slung from the zwoot’s saddle. “Will you accept a basket of fresh spice-rolls with my apologies?” 

“I can feed myself, you know.” 

“But Melati, dear, I’ve tasted your cooking,” Cholla shot back with a sweet smile. 

“You worry too much about me. One day I’ll have to find a way to give you and Klipspringer a child of your own. Then you’ll have someone else to fuss over.” 

Klipspringer’s face darkened slightly – I still can’t imagine why – but Cholla’s smile never wavered. “You could bless me with a litter of kitlings, Melati, and I’ll still be watching out for you.” 

“Why? Because of Pool?” 

“No, because of you. Great Sun, is it so strange that someone might love you for yourself?” 

I flinched at that. I tried to school my face to be still, but from the way Cholla’s eyes grew wider still and the way Klipspringer diplomatically regarded the ground, I must have looked like I’d been pierced in the heart. 

“I… I’d invite you in for something to drink,” I stammered out, trying to remember my courtesies. “You must be thirsty after the long ride. But m-my workshop is a mess. If you’d like, I can bring something out and we can sit in the shade–” 

“No need to trouble yourself,” Cholla insisted. 

“Actually, we came to ask you to dine with us tonight,” Klipspringer added. 

“In Oasis? Oh, that’s thoughtful of you, but–” 

“You and Cholla could ride together and I’ll walk.” 

“–I have a lot of work to do here–” 

A noise and a movement caught Cholla’s eye. She gasped, and I turned, terrified it was Beast. But it was just one of my fan-tailed quail. It pecked at the ground, then looked at the newcomers and cooed softly. Cholla sighed. 

“I love that sound. We have a peacoo that likes to roost in the gardens just below our bedroom window. He calls to his mate at night… we always fall asleep to the sound.” 

“I only wish I could get them to breed true,” I grumbled. “What good are peacoos if they only lay quail eggs?” 

“They’re still quail, under all those new feathers you grew,” Klipspringer pointed out. “You changed their bodies, not their souls.” 

“Well, I want to change their souls. I don’t want to have to make new peacoos from scratch every time!” 

Cholla smiled. “The crafter’s lament. I know I’d love if my waterjars could breed. But art won’t make itself, I’m afraid.” 

“You sound like Lord Haken. I told him – what about sunsets? They make themselves! You tease me, Auntie Cholla, but clay is a lifeless material. Flesh lives. So why shouldn’t my art become just as natural, just as self-renewing as sunsets?” 

“Well, you’ve only been at it for a few years,” Klipspringer said. “Give it a mountain’s age…” 

I did not bother to say: why should I have to wait that long? I knew they would just give me the indulgent looks that meant: you are so young still, you will learn patience in time, just as we did. Patience – it was simply a pretty way of accepting defeat. A way of enduring surrender. And why should I surrender, just because everyone before me had? Can no one see that I am something different? 

I raged in silence, which Cholla misunderstood for weariness. “You’ve been working too hard,” she pronounced. “Come home with us. Have a nice supper and a good night’s sleep in your old bed. It’ll do you a world of good.” 

I tried to think of a suitable excuse. But in truth, I was weary – weary of the lies, the evasions. 

“We have missed you, Melati, believe it or not,” Klipspringer added. “And I can only imagine what stories you have to tell us.” 

Oh, you have no idea, I wanted to laugh. 

Cholla held out her hand. She hadn’t kept them covered on the ride out, and the sun had burned the top of her hand an angry red. It would surely itch and peel in another day. For all her years, she clearly hadn’t learned much common sense. I couldn’t help it. I took her hand in mine and healed the burn. 

Cholla’s fingers tightened around mine. “Come back with us,” she repeated. “Elves aren’t meant to live alone.” 

* * * 

Cholla has redecorated her rooms. Tapestries in bright blues have repeated the old tawny ones I remembered. She said the color is all the rage in Oasis this year, and it’s all the fault of my peacoos. 

We ate ravvit stew and sweetbread, and grilled rock-peppers – my childhood favorite. We shared a bottle of honeywine that was brewed when I was only a baby. I showed my thanks for the feast by listening attentively to all the latest news in Oasis, and never once glancing out of the window to see how high the moons had risen. 

Perhaps it was the wine, but I found I did genuinely enjoy hearing all the gossip – the beddings, the squabblings, the latest petty rivalries between farmers and crafters, between riders of wolf and cat. 

I was entranced by the way Cholla and Klipspringer interacted; how they finished each others’ phrases, how they shared a hundred different subtle glances and gestures that spoke a language all their own. Their bond was something I had never troubled to notice before. It was a perfect harmony, utterly unconscious, as natural as breathing. Even Haken and Chani did not have this sort of easy intimacy. 

The peacoo Cholla had mentioned did indeed start cooing for its mate. I thought of Beast, back at the cave, sulking because I told him his elbow would have to wait, that I would not return until the next morning. 

“You look like you’re studying us,” Cholla teased. 

“How old were you when you became lifemates?” The question burst from my lips, startling me. 

Cholla laughed. “Oh… you know, I can’t quite remember. Young. About your age, I think. ’Springer?” 

“About that,” he agreed. 

“Is that when you shared souls?” It was unconscionably rude to ask such a thing so bluntly, to elves who had become all but strangers to me. But they did not seem offended. They exchanged a somewhat guilty smile and nodded. 

“My mother did not approve,” Cholla said. “She thought me much too impulsive.” 

“But how did she know?” 

She shrugged. “How do you know when someone you love Recognizes?” 

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen anyone Recognize.” 

“You can tell,” Klipspringer explained, with a hint of a blush rising to his tanned cheeks. I suppose he didn’t expect to have to explain the facts of life to a grown maiden. “When you share your soul with someone… it changes you, in countless little ways. You can try to hide it from the tribe, but those close to you – your parents, your dearest friends… they can almost smell something different about you. You’re not quite the same person you were the day before.” 

I shuddered at the thought. Not the same person… the arrow hit too close to my own fears. 

“Oh, now you’ve put her off it forever,” Cholla chided gently. “Lots of elves fear losing themselves in another’s soul. I think that’s why so many would rather wait for Recognition to make the choice for them. But really, you don’t lose who you were – at least, no more than you lost who you were yesterday when you woke up this morning. Still… it’s not something to rush into. We’re not High Ones, after all – we can’t share ourselves with everyone who passes by and be none the worse for it! Mother thought we should have waited.” 

“Why didn’ t you?” 

“I was never good at waiting. I suppose it’s what comes of never quite knowing how much time I might have.” 

I frowned. She couldn’t mean her heart. To hear Grandmother tell it, Cholla had grown up with the entire tribe hovered over her shoulder, waiting to cocoon her and summon Leetah at the first sign of trouble. 

But Cholla went on. “You know, everyone likes to forget it now that so many years have passed. But when I was born, Leetah would not lay odds that I’d live through my first flood-and-flower. By the time I was eight, I’d had my heart restarted and reshaped so many times, I thought of it as a limp washrag. And by the time I was grown, I had already decided: I would not run to death… but High Ones curse it, I would run! Everyone wanted me to sit safely in the corner, within reach of a Preserver. But I had enough stillness. I would live, I would burn, and if I burned up, then so be it.” She looked up at her lifemate. “And if I only had a human’s lifespan, then I would share every moment of those short years with my beloved.” 

Klipsringer appeared almost bashful under Cholla’s heated gaze. “I never feared you’d burn up – I wouldn’t have allowed it,” he said, sounding for a moment just like his father Door. Then he smiled gently, and all I could see was the warmth of his Wolfrider blood. “But when you know something in your bones, waiting won’t change anything.” 

I marveled at the love between them. I thought how lucky Cholla was, despite her poor health, to have grown up knowing such utter and complete devotion from such a noble elf. And then I remembered with a start that I had had the very same luck, but I had thrown it away. 

“Melati?” Cholla looked back at me. “Oh, High Ones…” 

I can’t remember how I started to cry. I only remember that before I knew it, I was bawling – raw-voiced and runny-nosed, sobbing on Cholla’s shoulder, moaning Yosha’s name as she held me like a baby. 

I don’t know how long I wept, I only know both elves showed me the greatest kindness. They let me cry myself to exhaustion on a pallet of cushions. They didn’t object when I begged them not to send for Haken or Chani. They left me to drift in a stupor of grief, and when I came to again, they brought me a warm blanket and a hot cup of thistle-tea. 

“I know words won’t help,” Cholla said at length. “But believe me when I say: there is no shame in grief. You’ve been so strong since Yosha left us. You don’t need to be.” 

“I do,” I hiccuped. “I… can’t tell you why!” 

She patted my knee. **I wish I had fought harder for you, little one.** 

“What do you mean?” 

“Nothing. Nothing at all.” 

I spent the night on their cushions. At dawn I returned home to the cave. I did not even say good morning to Haken or Chani. I doubted they’d even mind; they had grown so used to my comings and goings. 

I’ve brooded over what Cholla said all day. I wish I had fought harder… against whom? Pool? Haken? My own cursed fate? 

It could have been me and Yosha sitting at a table, ladling out food to a guest and making dove-eyes at each other all night. In five, six thousand years, we could have been the ones clucking our tongues at the foolishness of youth. 

I found Beast still asleep, lying on his side and cradling his right elbow against his chest. I sat for the longest time, just watching him breath, noting all the many complex actions required for such a simple task. Coordination of nerves and muscles, commands issued in bolts of living skyfire and executed in tireless flesh. I looked down at his half-shaped arm. The elbow was still misaligned, but the muscles of the forearm had grown thicker, longer, better suited to hefting the weapon I’d made of his hand. Tendons flexed under scaled skin. I followed the movement down to his hand, saw his claw-fingers curling in spasms. He was dreaming. 

My mind reached for his instinctively. I had spied on Yosha’s dreams all the time. There was nothing so amusing as reaching into his sleep and twisting the landscape of his dream, until he realized I was there and woke himself up. We’d made a game of it, seeing how quickly he could sense my presence, how long I could hover unseen. He’d tried to do the same to me when I slept, but he could never find a way into my mind. 

I’d always kept him locked out. 

**Yosha…** I sent. Beast’s eyelids fluttered. He rolled over onto his back and looked up at me with a sleepy smile. 

“Mel…” he murmured. 

**Yosha…** 

Cholla’s words rang in my head. I should have fought harder for you… 

**Open for me.** I commanded. **You are Yosha, and I am Melati. We are one! Let me in!** 

His mind was encased in a fortress of rock. But I was a rockshaper. I could force my way in. I could make him hear me. 

**Obey me! Open!** 

The body struggled. I placed my hands on the skull to focus my mind. His thoughts were a blaze of sparks, chaotic and primal. I could feel them burning me. I pressed deeper. I could take the pain. I would suffer anything to crack this dull shell open, and reveal the soul within. I could almost see the way... 

_“NO!”_ Beast broke away. His claws raked my shoulder as he pushed me away. I staggered to my feet as he struggled upright on the pallet. He pressed his claw-tipped hand to his forehead, hising in pain. Fresh blood ran from his nose. 

“Oh High Ones…” I murmured. “Beast – I’m sorry!” 

He turned and looked at me with an expression I’d never seen before. Rage: there was no other word for it. He glared at me as if he wanted to kill me. 

“This pain again?” 

“Let me help you–” 

I reached for him, he slapped my hand away. 

“I know this pain: you were looking for him!” 

“Beast–” 

“Tell me I’m wrong!” 

I couldn’t. I can never lie to him. 

“Why, why? You have me now! So why do you look for him? Am I not enough?” 

My silence was the only answer I dared to give. 

I expected anger: tears and wordless shouts and stamped feet, perhaps even a broken lamp. I was used to seeing him take his frustration out on the world. What I did not expect was the hand I had shaped for him closing tight around my neck, his thumb pressing against my windpipe as he dragged me clear across the room. 

_“Why?”_ he roared. “Why, why, why?” he shook me with each word, his fingers clenching ever tighter until I saw spots. I could have defended myself. I could have sent pain into every nerves in his body. I could have made the muscles of his fingers spasm and release me. But I didn’t. I didn’t even think of it. I just let him shake me like a rag doll. 

He shoved me hard against the nearest wall. He pined my back to the rock, and he brought his face close to mine. I squeezed my eyes shut so I wouldn’t have to see his expression of hatred. 

“I love you!” he howled. “I give you everything! And you take and take and want more! Want him. Why? Why is he so special?” 

“He… is my soul…” I choked out. “And yours.” 

He released me abruptly. I dropped to my knees, gasping for breath. 

Beast paced restlessly before me, clenching his fists. “He’s not!” he challenged. “He’s not me. I am me! I am Beast. This body is mine – he’s can’t have it back!” 

“He’s inside you,” I insisted. “He’s trying to get out. I know it. I look in your eyes and I swear, I can see him in there. If I could just reach that part of you–” I reached for him, but he shrank back. 

“How? Your think-talk?” 

“Oh Beast, if only you could understand what it’s like. It’s so much more than talking without sound. It’s… it’s what makes us elves.” 

_“THEN WHAT AM I?”_

I hung my head. “You’re… the best I could do. I’m so sorry. I was too proud, too impatient. I brought you back too soon. I fixed your body but I left your mind broken.” 

“You think I am broken? Why? Because I am different? Is a fox a broken lion?” 

“If only I could make you remember who you were–” 

“You would kill who I am! If Yosha lives, then Beast dies!” 

“Don’t say that.” 

“You say our souls are our thoughts, our feelings. But you want his thoughts in my head – his feelings! His memories – what about mine? If he comes back, where do I go?” 

I tried to cover my ears; I didn’t want to hear his cruel logic. He wouldn’t let me. He seized my wrists and hauled me to my feet. I twisted my face away from his, unable to meet his furious gaze. With a snarl, he seized a handful of my hair and forced me to look at him. He pulled my head back, exposing my throat, and at that moment I was certain he meant to kill me. Just as I was certain I would let him. It was only what I deserved. 

“Would you kill me to have Yosha back?” he demanded. When I did not answer, he yanked harder on my hair until my scalp burned with pain. “Would you?” 

“Beast, please don’t ask me–” 

He released my hair, only to seize both my hands and press my palms to his temples. “Choose! Beast or Yosha – choose!” His face contorted in pain as I hesitated. “Do it!” 

I could do it, I realized. I could turn his mind to clay, and resculpt it as I saw fit. I could make a second attempt at rebuilding the elfin part of the brain I had so foolishly neglected before. It would wipe Beast’s memories completely; I would have to teach him all over again. But he could make new memories, and with everything I had learned over the last three years, surely I was better able to guide him back into consciousness. 

I might still not bring Yosha back entirely. I might even destroy what remained of his memories too. But there was a chance, however small… that I might finally repair his broken mind. He might be able to send again. And then I could share everything I knew of him, and the soul I had once rejected would slowly reassemble itself. And we could Recognize as we’d been meant to – and I could take him back to Oasis and admit everything and we could have a proper life together – we could have everything we’d lost restored to us – it would be as if the last six years had never happened… 

As if Beast had never existed. 

He was right: he couldn’t possibly regain all of Yosha’s thoughts and memories and still remain the elf called Beast. Even if I succeeded in restoring my soulbrother completely – and that was far from a certain outcome – I would lose this broken lad I had come to love. Beast, who danced in the rain and wept for dead birds, who could spent all night counting the stars overhead. Beast, who I had guided from helpless infant to hunter and lovemate. How could I kill him? 

But how could I abandon the hope of seeing Yosha again? 

I tried to pull my hands from his head. I didn’t want this choice. Beast would not relent. “Do it!” he begged again. He was shaking with terror and heartbreak. “Do it! Please!” 

“I can’t! I can’t lose you! I love you, Beast!” I couldn’t send to prove my sincerity; I could only scream the words out and beg, “Please, please believe me! I loved Yosha – I always will. But I love you too. And if getting him back means giving you up – then I choose you!” 

I was weeping hysterically. My legs could no longer support me; my hands slid down to frame his face. “I choose Beast!” I cried through the tears, and I meant it. Suddenly everything was clear. There was no choice to fear; I had already made it. “Yosha was my soulbrother, but you are my lifemate!” 

He stared at me, his eyes fierce, his face utterly unreadable. I felt my knees buckling. He didn’t trust me, I thought. He would turn from me now, and I would lose him at the very moment of learning how much I loved him. My head grew too heavy to hold up. “Say you believe me,” I pleaded, as my gaze dropped to the floor. “Please, Beast…” 

He released me and I felt myself swooning. But before I could fall, he reached around me and his claws closed around the back of my neck. He hauled me back upright as he yanked my chin up, and his mouth came down hard on mine. 

If our first joining had been without grace, then this time was without mercy. His claws tore my skin; my magic burned his nerves. It was an act of loathing as much a love – a deep disgust of our own frailties, a desire to destroy and begin anew. He took me as if he meant to make me forget Yosha ever existed. I took him as if I meant to force a Recognition of flesh alone. 

Perhaps I did. Afterwards, we lay battered and spent, reveling in the pain as much as the pleasure. And when I gazed into his eyes, I swore I could see something I hadn’t before. Perhaps I simply hadn’t wanted to. I had always focused too much on the scar between his eyes, on the way the color of those eye changed with the light. But I saw it now: a light glowing from within, the spark of a soul much older than three years. A familiar soul, shaped and stretched by death and rebirth, but still recognizable. 

At least I think that’s what I saw. 

That’s what I choose to see. 

**Rainsign – three years since revival**

Grandmother said trust is a choice. I trust that I’ve done the right thing. I trust that Yosha still walks beside me, only in another form. I trust that despite what Beast believes, something of the soul endures beyond thought, beyond memory. Klipspringer said my peacoos still have the souls of quails. I find that thought comforting now. 

I still call him “Yosha” by accident now and then. Not aloud, but in thought, and sometimes in sendings no one living can hear. I am trying to cure myself of the habit. I tell myself the Wolfriders change their names when it suits them, and he is half-Wolfrider, after all. It doesn’t matter in the end what he calls himself. He is my lifemate. 

**Bloomtide – four years since revival**

I’ve finished the arm at last. Curse all these interruptions. Now his skin from shoulder to fingertip has become a impenetrable hide, the color of dried blood. The knobs of bone on his elbow and shoulder have become deadly defensive spikes. His clawed hand now has muscle-power behind it to fell a buck or a lion with a single slash, or a bone-shattering clout. 

Beast loves his new toy. He plays at being hunter every day. I hardly need to bring any food in from Oasis now; he finds the meat, I only need prepare it. He likes my cooking. 

Yesterday he ran across the Pride again. But he has learned how to be stealthy now. He passed within sight of them and they never noticed. 

“I think I can find a way to bring you to Oasis, you know,” I offered, after he told me the whole story. “If you want.” 

He shook his head. “They will want him back.” 

“I could make them understand. As I do, now.” 

He shrugged. “Don’t need them. I have you.” He smiled Yosha’s Cricket-grin. “You are all I need.” 

I won’t push him. If one day he changes his mind… I will find a way to make the others understand. I will stand tall beside him and defend every choice I’ve made since the day I revived him. I won’t let a single elf call him a mistake – and if Pool or Grandmother dare to speak of “fixing” my perfect Beast, I will shatter their minds myself before I will let them lay their hands on him. 

But until then, he can remain my secret. 

**Bonedry – ten years since revival**

Success! One of my peacoo eggs hatched into a quail with peacoo-blue feathers. It’s not a perfect copy, but it’s a start. In time, if I breed shapechanged to shapechanged, my creatures could become self-renewing. 

Tonight Beast asked me if I thought I could make him a friend for hunting. I think he wants to ride a tuftcat like his mother does. 

**Rainsign – twenty-six years since revival**

Rainsign, but no rain. Game is scarce this year – the hunters are riding by our workshop regularly. It’s only a matter of time until they discover Beast. I am beginning to think we should move somewhere more remote. 

The peacoo flock is doing well, despite the drought. Another clutch of eggs hatched into perfect miniatures of their parents. 

_[record ends]_

_[new record begins at secondary site]_

**Bonedry – fifty-two years since revival**

After so many false starts, it’s nice to have a proper home again. This new cave is very satisfactory. There are hot springs and mineral flows – Beast calls them the Cinder Pools. 

At a ten day journey from Oasis, it’s unlikely to see visitors, and the fire under the ground makes the rock extra malleable. The distance means Beast and I must spend more time apart. I do not intend to give up my entire life in Oasis, and Beast does not expect me to. He has enough to amuse himself now, during my absences. He knows I always come back. 

**Staleheat – eighty years since revival**

Beast asked for new feet for his birthday. He wants to be able to climb the rocks barefoot, and to walk over the salt flats without fear of burns. I told him we could discuss it, but that I wouldn’t be doing anything rash. Still, the possibilities intrigue me...

_[Partial entry – heavily eroded, date unknown]_

He’s been spotted again…. 

[So] far I have persuaded everyone he is merely another fleshshaped creature. But… [the] ravvits will always spin their… tales… 

[They’re] calling him the Master of the Shapechanged… 

… how I laughed when I heard… 

_[mineral deposits cover further entries. End of record]_

**Author's Note:**

> Check out the full EQ Alternaverse at http://www.janesenese.com/swiftverse


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